Monday, January 11, 2010 Regina

We went for a last walk on the beach this morning before pick up at 10:30. We were in the last row again – that’s Air Miles for you. We arrived home on time at 6:15, but Dale and Gail were early and beat us into the customs lineup. There were only two people behind us from our flight, so there were two airplanes full of people ahead of us. It took us about an hour to get through customs. Carla drove us home to an excellent dinner prepared by Tyler with Laura and Brett also there to greet us. We tortured them all with our unedited pictures before turning in for the night.

Sunday, January 10, 2010 Mazatlan

I suggested taking one of the Pulmonia taxis (glorified golf carts; see one at left) to the Old Town, but Celeste still was not interested, so we hit the beach again from late morning to late afternoon. Once again, we read our books, but I also did some body surfing and took a long walk south toward the Old Town. After rounding a point, I had a good view of the town beyond.

By late afternoon we were ready for some cool shade, so we retreated to the pool area in the shade of the building and some palm trees. Note to self: when seeking shade, do not sit under palm trees! Some bird found me again. What are the odds?





We went for the buffet supper again tonight, but did not stay for the show. The title was something like “Participacions de Huesquedas” – I didn’t like the look of the Participacions part. We went for a stroll and went by the theatre. It looked like my worst fears were confirmed.

The weather has been super. Every day has been very warm without being too hot. I suppose the breeze off the ocean helps moderate the heat. The first three days had high thin cloud, often overcast, but it was still warm and bright with full sun sometimes breaking through. The remainder of the days were nearly cloudless with bright blue skies.

Saturday, January 9, 2010 Mazatlan

Today was beach day. We went down there after our late breakfast and stayed until mid afternoon. I went in the water a couple of times and made my amateur attempts at body surfing, sometimes with a little bit of success. Celeste read her book covered up under towels and I read mine between my swims. It was a pretty good day except for the part where some bird “rained” on our parade!

The beach here is quite wide and flat with nice sand, but you don’t have to go very far out before you find that the sand has been scoured away and onto the beach leaving rough rocks below. At least it wasn’t sharp like the coral that cut my foot in Hawaii a couple of years ago.

We grabbed late lunch at the outdoor buffet and ran into Terry (Letourneau) Tramer from Regina. She and her husband are renting a condo nearby and came here for the beach. We had a nice visit discussing retirement, winter holidays, and grandchildren.

After our visit, we took a long walk on the beach, and then read our books in the shade beside the pool until our dinner reservation at 6 in the Argentinian restaurant. We then stopped in for the evening show at the buffet restaurant. It was a series of numbers from Broadway shows. I thought they missed the mark on this one too. The costumes were fantastic and there were some dance numbers that showed off the talents of the cast, but, for me, too much of it was one or two characters lip-synching to recorded music. Celeste called it “Musical Theatre.” I would have preferred seeing more of their own dance talent and more national folk dances and story telling. But, I guess when you are doing a show every night of the week, they want to have some variety. I think a couple of the shows that we missed were more in line with what I was looking for.

I would wager that close to half the people here are Canadians. In the nightly shows and at some of the activities around the pool (Bingo, for example), they sometimes ask who is from Canada, Mexico, or the USA. Canada is always clearly the majority, followed fairly closely by Mexico, with the USA a distant third. I was surprised at the number of Mexicans, but I guess they holiday at their coastal beaches just like the Americans go to Florida. One group that is noticeably absent is black people. We have seen barely a handful all week.

Friday, January 8, 2010 Mazatlan

Today was pool day. I suggested that we catch the local bus and tour the Old Town, but Celeste was not too keen on riding the bus and was concerned about getting lost. We spent most of the day by the pool reading. I took a few swims. We tried to stay in the shade most of the time, but Celeste got a touch too much sun in the late afternoon and got a slight sunburn.

In the evening, we ate at the buffet and took in the show. When we returned to our room, I fired up the computer for the first time. I had not bothered previously because there is only one plug in the whole room and it is in a hard to reach spot under the TV. I decided today that I would work on battery as long as I could (not long on this laptop) then plug it in to the bathroom outlet overnight.

Thursday, January 7, 2010 Mazatlan

In the late morning we walked up and down the main street in front of our hotel. There are numerous hotels, resorts, shops, and restaurants. Almost as numerous are the people trying to get you to attend a time share sales pitch. They accost you every few hundred feet. Some of them are really persistent, but they eventually give up if you keep saying no and keep walking. I tried saying we had already been to the pitch, but then they wanted to know which one, in case we missed theirs, so we kept it simple after that.

We read our books on our balcony until late afternoon when we embarked on our City Tour. This tour bus was built as an old style trolley. First stop was a jewelry store – Surprise! Surprise! But they gave us each a free glass of beer while we snooped around, so it was OK. From there we drove down the main street along the shore to the Old Town. .We stopped and watched a cliff diver. Our guide told us that one of the divers died just last week. We went up to a lookout and watched a cruise ship sail out of the harbour. Then we drove down one of the oldest streets, observing the houses, stopped at the main cathedral, and found a nearby pastry shop. The final stop was at another craft and jewelry store, where we scored free Margueritas

We returned to the resort where we ate in the buffet restaurant and took in the night’s show. They did Aladdin. The costumes were very elaborate and professional; the performance was good; but I was not really into the story and music. Too much of a kids show for me. We didn’t reserve in another restaurant because we weren’t sure what time we would be back.

Our guide tonight was very good and very entertaining. Unfortunately, the bus was kind of loud and it was difficult to make out a lot of what he said. Another downside was that our tour was so late in the day that much of it was in the dark. Much of what we saw was lit anyway, but, for instance, we did not get a very good look at the houses on the old street.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 Mazatlan

This morning we went on the Country Tour. I was expecting a small bus, but we ended up in a van. There were 13 of us in the van, including the driver and guide. I did not realize it until she told me when we got back, but Celeste was the third person in a two person seat – and her seatmates were not skinny. She spent the day hanging on by one cheek trying not to fall on the floor. I was third in a three person and was just barely able to perch both cheeks on the seat, although my right one was resting on a steel bar. With us were a retired man from Prince Albert and his son from Saskatoon, another couple from Prince Albert, a couple and their adult daughter from Kelowna, another couple (who might also have been from Prince Albert), and us. (There are lots of Canadians here and I have even seen a few Roughrider t-shirts.)

Our first stop was an open field beside the road near the airport. There was a bus from the same company already stopped there and I thought that maybe this was a transfer point and we would be moving to the bus, but such was not the case. Apparently, there were two cruise ships in town, and they gobbled up all the best transportation. The people from the other bus were in the field watching some kind of demonstration. Our guide did not really explain anything, so we followed the crowd and found the guide from the bus explaining a brick making operation, so we followed along.


A man was mixing up clay that he had dug up and wetted. We missed the whole recipe, but I heard cow dung mentioned.
A woman took the wet mixture and packed it into a form that makes four bricks at a time.
The bricks are allowed to dry on the ground until solid, and then stacked up to dry thoroughly.
Then they are restacked with a hollow space on the bottom.
The hollow space is filled with wood and the whole stack is fired. It is covered somehow and kept hot for a couple of days. This firing process turns the brick orange. They are now ready to be sold to middlemen who distribute them through various outlets in the city.

Next stop was a small town called Malpica (Mal-PEE-kuh). There an artisan showed us how he makes decorative cement floor and wall tiles with a 130-year-old press.
Other artisans also displayed their crafts there.
We also snuck a peek into the neighbours’ back yards.
Across the street was a small local bakery that did a booming business, especially when the previously mentioned bus showed up behind us. Once again, our guide did not have much to contribute and we got most of our information from the other guide. I think our guy was a second stringer called out because of the unusual number of tourists that day.


From Malpica, it was on to Concordia. Our guide led us to the municipal building – sort of a city hall and police station. Again, he had little to say, so we wandered around the main square until it was time to go.


Last stop, and the prime goal of the tour, was Copala (Coe-PAH-lah). This town was founded by a Spaniard in 1565 because of the presence of gold under it. Gold is no longer mined there.
It is primarily a tourist and artisan town. Once again, we explored on our own, and then went to a local restaurant for a traditional meal. An interesting sidelight is this Manitoba licensed car we spotted. Later, I walked by this house and heard the owner telling someone that he owns this house and another in Mazatlan. He said he pays $2 a year taxes on this one and $13 a year in Mazatlan. Mind you, I don’t think he gets much in the way of services.

From Copala, we returned to the resort in plenty of time for our dinner reservation in their Italian restaurant. Once again, the food was very good, but a little different from home.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 Mazatlan

We attended the time share presentation which included breakfast and a tour of the newer resort to the north of us. It turned out that time share is not a totally accurate description, as it is actually a points system, so it has more flexibility. It is really more like a travel agency. You can apply your points to virtually any travel product, such as air fare and tours. It was sounding like it might be worth joining until they mentioned the price - $69,500 USD, half up front and half financed. Yikes! We are not about to invest that much without putting some thought into it, which of course they would not allow. Then things got predictably ugly and we left. But, we got our tours!

We returned to our place, grabbed some lunch, and then went for a walk on the beach. We returned to our room and read our books on the balcony for the afternoon. We went to their Mexican restaurant for the evening meal. The service and presentation were excellent. The food was very good, but the beef was definitely not Canadian grain-fed beef. Pretty good, but not as good as home.

Monday, January 4, 2010 Mazatlan

We met Dale and Gail at the airport and chatted with them for awhile. They were going to Cabo San Lucas on SkyService. We departed pretty much on time, shortly after 9 AM. Dale and Gail got out a few minutes ahead of us. The announced flight time was 3:44. It was an uneventful flight. We arrived about 1 our time – noon local time. We checked in to the hotel and a lady from information desk offered to brief us on where all the hotel facilities were after we were settled in our room. We didn’t have our guard up, but eventually realized that this was a set up for a time share presentation. We decided to go see her anyway as we wanted the hotel briefing. After the hotel briefing came the pitch for the time share presentation. She offered us tickets for two of the tours we wanted to do anyway, so we decided to check it out. We grabbed a mid afternoon lunch at the buffet, and then set out to explore the place.

We are at the El Cid Castilla, one of four El Cid properties in the area. El Cid is a large Mexican resort and tour company. Our place is in a cluster of three properties grouped together, with the fourth less than a mile north. Our place was probably built in the 70s or 80s, but it is pretty well kept.

After our explorations, we enjoyed a buffet dinner, followed by a live show. There were several dance numbers representing different aspects of Mexico’s and Mazatlan’s history done to recorded music. It was a fairly high quality presentation.